“Nay!” answered Six Bottles. “Do you blow, blow with your evil breath, and instead of white silver we shall have a platform of red copper.”
So the Serpent blew and on the copper platform that came of his breath Six Bottles met him in combat. Back and forth they raged, Six Bottles striking left and right with his mighty sword, the Serpent hitting at Six Bottles with every one of his six scaly heads and belching forth fire and smoke from all his mouths. Six Bottles whacked off one head, then another, then another. At last he had disposed of five heads. He tried hard to strike the last, but by this time the Serpent had grown wary and Six Bottles’ own strength was waning. So he reached down and took one of his shoes and threw it over his shoulder back to his comrades who were awaiting the outcome of the struggle. Instantly they loosed the dog which bounded forward to its master’s assistance and soon with the dog’s help Six Bottles was able to dispatch the last head.
Then his comrades led him, weary from the fight, to the old woman’s hut and soon he fell asleep.
While he slept the Moon appeared in the sky and a great cry of relief and thanksgiving went up from all the world:
“The Moon! The Moon! God bless the man who has released the Moon!”
The King who was awakened by the sound looked out the castle window and when he saw the Moon, returned to its place in the sky, his eyes overflowed with grief.
“My poor second daughter!” he cried. “It was my sacrifice of her that has released the Moon! To-morrow morning I will send the slaves to gather up her bones and to bring back the leather sack into which, alas! I must then sew my youngest daughter for evil Suyettar’s third son, the Nine-Headed Serpent. Ai! Ai! Ai! How sad it is to be a father!”
But on the morrow when the slaves went to the rock they found the second princess sitting there alone gazing down upon the scattered fragments of the Six-Headed Serpent.
“Here she is, safe and sound!” they reported to the King as they led the second princess into his presence, “and, marvel of marvels! on the beach below the rock lies the body of the Six-Headed Serpent torn to pieces! Its heads, O King, are so monstrous that six men with derricks could scarcely move one of them!”
“God be praised!” the King cried. “Another unknown hero has come and saved the life of my second child! Would that a third might come to-night and rescue the life of my youngest child! Alas, she is dearer to me than both the others, but I fear me that even if there be heroes who could dispatch the first two Serpents, there is never one who can touch him of the Nine Heads that holds the mighty Sun a captive!”